


The Archeology of Memory

by fourteenlines



Category: Farscape
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-05
Updated: 2002-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourteenlines/pseuds/fourteenlines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's Pompeii to her Vesuvius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Archeology of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, rose petals have been strewn at the feet of Sarah Wait, beta-reader and the best big sister I never had. Quite frankly, I don't care that this story will be obsolete the moment the season premier airs - at least I slipped in before June 7th. Title taken a year and a half ago from an article in Interior Design magazine. Go figure.
> 
> Spoilers through "Dog With Two Bones"

(I: VANISHING ACT)

"This is the story of how we begin to remember."

 

-Paul Simon, "Under African Skies"

*

A low wail, the municipal siren, resonates through the city. It signals the dry heat of midday, the time when the temperature skyrockets too high even for non-Sebaceans, and everyone retreats underground.

From the sky, it looks like an abandoned city, a ruin, and John almost turns around, almost cuts through the atmosphere and ricochets off into space again. He's seen a lot of abandoned outposts lately, and they're starting to depress him.

But out of the corner of his eye, he sees a lone figure struggling toward one of the buildings. It's a girl, or a very old man. Struggling with robes and maybe the heat John can see rising off the ground in dizzy waves.

So he lands, and when he opens the hatch on the module, suddenly it's like there's no air to breathe. It's worse than Florida, worse than Texas, worse (he imagines) than the Sahara; his black leather draws in the heat and the only thing that makes him stay is that person he saw from the air. She (he's already decided it's a girl) might need help in a place like this. He peels out of his coat, out of his gloves, and wishes for a pair of bermuda shorts.

Fifteen minutes, no more, and then he'll leave, he promises himself. Aeryn's certainly not _here_.

Two arns later, they find him collapsed next to his module, half-dead, his lips cracked from lack of moisture.

*

News passes quickly in the city, and Aeryn buries her face in her hands, because she knows it's him, knew this would happen, knew he would follow her. It's not about fate, it's about John, the most persistent man she's ever known.

The news about a Sebacean in an unfamiliar ship, one stupid enough to land at midday, passes quickly into the group, and Aeryn debates on what to tell them, if anything. She can't leave John to his own devices, obviously, and finally she volunteers to suss this stranger out.

Of course.

Fate? How about a cosmic joke? Because this is getting mildly ridiculous, even by their standards.

The hospital is seven levels below ground, because the air is always cool and damp there, perfect for victims of heat delirium and, in other species, heat stroke. She asks after the Sebacean stranger by telling the nurse he fits the description of a cousin of hers. The nurse, of course, doesn't believe her.

But he's lying there on one of the beds - the heat sickness ward isn't particularly full today, and Aeryn counts it a good thing. John has sunburn, windburn, sandburn. He's red, trembling and damp with salve, and she wants to throttle him right there for doing this to himself. The skin of his lips is white and peeling, with blood around the edges. Judging from the degree of his wounds, he won't be released until tomorrow, possibly the next day, even with the accelerated healing properties of the salve.

John shifts in his sleep, twitches, starts coughing. He reaches blindly for the nightstand, and the water there. Aeryn hands him the cup, and their hands brush in the passing.

And he knows. She can tell; he knows.

*

First one eye slides open against the sticky salve coating his skin, then the other. The world is a celadon blur. John closes his eyes, brushes the goop away, opens them again.

Aeryn isn't there.

He dreamed it. He dreamed she was here, and left a drop of water on his parched tongue. John clutches at the glass by his bed, but if there are fingerprints, they're invisible to the eye. She has such cool, dry skin.

Abracadabra. She's gone.

Only she was never here in the first place, and there's something wrong if he's dreaming her here. He hasn't done that for five or six systems now.

John struggles to sit up, and finally someone takes notice. He's not surprised to wake up in what's apparently a hospital. Not surprised his skin is red and peeling back at the edges. The skin beneath is white and tender, and he tries not to think of it as a metaphor for something.

The nurse is white - paper-white, with sleek orange hair. Quite beautiful in her own way. John feels like he's still wiping goop from his eyes, because she shimmers.

"Your cousin left this morning," she remarks, voice dark and deep and sardonic. Everything is a study in contrasts in this universe, and she is no exception. Vanilla skin, licorice voice.

"C-cousin?" he manages, through a sand-roughened throat.

"So she said," the nurse answers, smirking. "She paid your bill, left you some clothes - what the frell were you doing, wandering around at midday in _those_?" She gestures to a pile of black at the foot of the bed. His leathers.

"Uh, it's all I have." John reaches for the black, but the nurse's hand on his wrist stops him. He winces, pulling back.

"I said, your 'cousin' left you some clothes. I'd advise you put them on. And stay out of the sun for a day or so, hey?" She tosses some lightweight sand-colored garments in his direction. They're similar to what she's wearing, to what the girl he saw yesterday (was it yesterday?) wore, only these are more economical than the elaborate robes he saw from the air.

The nurse hastens to check on another patient, and John slowly gets to his feet and begins to dress behind a screen to the right of the bed. He reaches for the pile of black and finds that Winona was not taken from him while he slept; his utility belt doesn't look out of place, but the leg holster stands out like a disease against his tan trousers.

"Hey," he calls when he's finished, "did this cousin of mine tell you where I could reach her?"

Her eyes don't stray to the weapon at his side. "I figured you were together. Sebacean, tall, dark hair?"

John stares at the nurse for a long moment, blinking stupidly. Well, who did he think would look after him, anyway? "Yeah, forget it," he says. "How long have I been here?" he asks after a moment.

"The better part of two solar days. That was a nasty burn you got."

There's no possible way he can shave with his face like this, and any of the depilatory solutions commonly available would peel his skin right off. He settles for washing his face carefully and sitting while the nurse applies more salve. "I'm not Sebacean," he says after a moment. Hell, it's not a secret anymore, not in any imaginable corner of the universe.

The nurse smirks again. "You think I don't know? You'd be living dead if you were."

Point taken.

Before she lets him leave, the nurse gives him a firm lecture on heat precautions. Some pamphlets in a language he can't read. A suggestion to start with the underground network.

She also gives him a pinch on the ass on his way out the door, but he's inclined to disregard that.

Even in the new, lighter clothes, the going is slow. He remembers the worst sunburn he ever got, the spring break when he and Alex got drunk on Palm Beach and fell asleep in the sun. This looks better, but feels worse. Then again, he didn't see himself yesterday.

That voice in the back of his head reminds him. The nurse didn't say the Sebacean who came for him was pregnant.

*

Stepping out of the underground transport, the waves of heat nearly make her choke. She turns to the side and coughs as a departing ground vehicle kicks up clouds of gritty dirt that stick in her throat and make her eyes water.

The Docking Authority has the distinction of being one of the only ancient structures left standing on the surface. Aeryn didn't bother to learn much of this planet's history, but she knows it was a bloody one.

She kept her vigil by John's side all night. They keep repeating these patterns over and over again, but she doesn't stop to consider what it might mean. Possibly that they both are fools. But she left at dawn, when he started to show signs of waking. Besides having the module to attend to, she has contacts she needs to make. Really, that's all it is. Spies and subversives are busy people.

The Docking Authority's main hall is nearly empty in midmorning. Her boots leave tracks in the wide, dusty floor. Nearly everything is dusty on the surface. She inquires at a counter about the ship the strange Sebacean came in yesterday. "He's a friend of mine," she says.

She's amazed, almost, that no one has mentioned John Crichton's name. She left Moya, but couldn't leave the memory behind. John's reputation followed her everywhere, and now that he's here, no one says a word. But then, the inhabitants of this planet tend to be remarkably discreet.

The docking fee paid, Aeryn turns and leaves the Authority, Farscape's bay number on a data pad in her pocket. She doesn't look for the ship, and she doesn't look back.

She's out of the habit of looking behind her. She stopped waiting for yesterday quite some time ago.

*

He makes straight for the surface. So much for caution.

The holo-maps at each transport post are easy enough to read. John had wondered why there were no windows to be seen. The thought crosses his mind that perhaps "underground network" is more literal than figurative, in this instance.

He makes for the surface anyway, operating purely on instinct. Guts, and the seat of his flight suit. His lips twist ironically; at this late date, the phrase seems inappropriate.

The first order of business is his module. No telling what they did with it. A few short inquiries in the information system, and he heads for a cavernous building they call the Docking Authority.

It's early afternoon, and the hall is filled with people jostling each other for space at the counters, cramming the passageways that lead to the launch pads. A quarter-arn later, he reaches the counter. The man behind it looks like a miniature Jabba the Hut, only with tan, leathery skin and a vaguely human head. "Yeah, she paid the fees this morning. A real looker, if you know what I mean, but a little stiff-backed. Didn't appreciate my attempts to, uh, barter the price at all."

John glares at him. "No, I don't imagine she would."

"I can't give you the docking code, friend. Salvage rights, you know. You're lucky your friend paid the fee before anyone else."

John, as he leaves, thinks that at least he has been upgraded to "friend."

As he steps out of the Docking Authority, a keening siren cuts through the air. A flurry of activity begins around him, and John finds himself swept toward the entrance to the underground.

*

Aeryn gasps as she stumbles into the cool access chamber. She was foolish, to be out in the heat for so long. She could almost feel the choking fingers of the living death creep across her skin. But if she were in the underground network, John would find her. And she wasn't ready for that yet. Though after all, what would make her ready?

She somehow feels like this is a betrayal, hiding from him this way. This isn't trusting fate. She forgets, sometimes, that she doesn't believe in fate. He's almost enough to make her want to.

So she can do nothing but smile, if a bit tersely, when she hears a rough voice behind her. "Aeryn?"

Aeryn takes a deep, cool breath and spins on her heel.

"I'm surprised it took you this long to find me." Seeing him conscious jolts her, and she has to take a step back.

The first words out of his mouth are predictable. "We need to talk."

She raises her brows. "Not here."

"I know." He walks toward her, moving slowly, looking her up and down. His gaze makes her uncomfortable, and she lets the smile slip from her face.

John sets his jaw.

"Where can we go?" he asks after a few tense moments.

Aeryn's eyes narrow in thought as she weighs their options. "I know a place. It would be best if you followed me."

She turns to go, but John remains rooted in place. "Where are we going?"

Aeryn looks around watchfully, and lowers her voice. "I can't - we're going to my quarters," she says firmly. Easier to tell a half-truth.

He nods, and follows her to one of the transports. They keep pace with one another as well as always. After a while, he grinds out, "I thought you were going to join--"

"I did," she interjects. Just like him, no caution at all.

"Here?"

"Here."

They have the transport car to themselves, and because John refuses to look at her, she takes the opportunity to examine him. He appears to be healing well enough. In some places the skin has peeled, and in others, the burn appears to be fading.

But. John refuses to look at her. And she can't be certain what that means.

He can't possibly be angry with her for how it all turned out.

Aeryn will admit that she's...missed him, she supposes. She wasn't prepared for the gaping ache in her heart, because she assumed that she no longer had one. She also wasn't prepared for how free she began to feel in the half-cycle they've been apart.

For so long, she simply refused to remember. Easy enough, with work to occupy her mind. Discipline, routine, fitting order to chaos. A life she knows how to handle.

She's a little surprised that she can look at him without seeing the other's face. And now, looking at him refusing to look at her, that gaping ache comes rushing back.

~*~

(II: AMONG THE RUINS)

"The price of a memory is the memory of sorrow it brings."

 

-Counting Crows, "Mrs. Potter's Lullabye"

*

They pause, twelve levels down, outside an anonymous door. Aeryn presses an ident chit to the locking mechanism. The door, sliding open, reveals a silent flurry of activity through a thick glass wall. She moves to enter, but he has her wrist in a firm grasp before she can step through the door. His other hand twitches, but he doesn't grip his pulse gun.

"I thought we were going to your quarters. I thought we were going to talk."

Aeryn regards him coolly, one brow arched. "My quarters are here. And we will talk. First, I have work to take care of."

John's grip weakens, and it's not because she's struggling. His eyes lock on her flat belly, not for the first time today, and he turns to the side just in time to avoid heaving all over her unfamiliar beige clothes. She sighs, a firm hand on his upper arm, the other around his chest. She's careful not to touch any of the burns.

He spits one last time, and she smirks at him. "Besides, you need to sleep. I don't particularly feel like having a conversation with you if you're going to do _that_ every quarter-arn."

The leaden door has closed - one of their security measures - and she has to press her ident chit to the lock to open it again, this time hauling him inside. John wipes his mouth, noting, "I had been feeling a lot better. I guess it's heat sickness - hope it's not the flu."

The door slides shut behind them, and Aeryn presses her palm to the genetic ident pad next to an invisible door. With a tiny hiss, the door swings back, and the ex-Peacekeeper headquarters come alive with sound.

There are at least a dozen people at consoles in the anteroom, all wearing some variation of the preferred dress code in these parts. Most are hunched over consoles, looking at readouts. A few have ship schematics on display, but most of them are sifting through the mountains of information gathered every day from spies and snipers scattered throughout the galaxy.

John's starting to get dizzy now, and he can't remember the last time he ate. He mumbles as much to Aeryn, and she nods curtly, her eyes on a dark man walking toward them.

"Sun," he nods. "This our strange friend?" The unspoken question behind it is barely discernible: "Or is he an enemy?" If Aeryn so much as flinched, John would be down for the count in half a second.

A smile flickers on Aeryn's face, and she nods in return, less formally than the dark man. "Yes. He's...an old friend of mine, actually. John, meet Ten'ran Sardak. Sardak, this is John." Her eyes flash, and the glance speaks volumes: "He's not a Peacekeeper."

He must, of course, know that it's John Crichton. He must, but this Sardak isn't looking at John. His eyes glide over Aeryn, darkly, and if John weren't feeling quite so nauseous, he might begin to feel jealous and angry. Aeryn shifts under the weight of the gaze.

"He's still feeling the effects of heat sickness. We should get him to a medtech. Hadieri's on duty?"

"Of course," Sardak agrees - far too pleasantly for an ex-Peacekeeper, in John's opinion - and lets Aeryn lead him away.

As their bootsteps beat out a pattern on the floor, Sardak murmurs to Aeryn, "I was concerned when you didn't check in last night."

"I had to stay with him," Aeryn breathes, purposely loud enough for John to hear. She raises her brows at Sardak, holding his gaze unapologetically.

The door to the medical bay slides open, and John is introduced to a wry and efficient medtech by the name of Hadieri, a small woman with hair as black as the void of space. She nods once and presses an injector to his wrist. The force of the drug hits him like a comet, and he folds in on himself.

Sardak departs as soon as John goes down. Aeryn, muscles straining as she lifts John onto the nearest bunk, says, "Did I forget to mention he isn't Sebacean?"

Hadieri's eyes narrow appreciatively. "Didn't want to talk to him right now, then?"

And for the first time since John's arrival, Aeryn laughs.

A smile turns the corners of Hadieri's mouth, and she examines John's unconscious form, none too gently, lifting his eyelids with the sides of her thumbs. She moves quickly and economically, as ruthless in her own way as any other Peacekeeper. She nods, satisfied at what she's found. Her appraising gaze turns to Aeryn next.

"And what about you? You're not looking too well yourself."

Any latent amusement fades quickly from Aeryn's face. "I'm fine. I have work to do."

"No, not until I say so you don't," Hadieri corrects, forcing Aeryn down on a bed next to John's. She has cool hands that feel unnaturally strong as she examines Aeryn's palms and takes her pulse. Hadieri's lips twist when she realizes the problem. "Almost got caught in the heat, didn't you?"

"Yes," Aeryn admits grudgingly.

Hadieri does nothing more dramatic than arch an eyebrow, but that gesture alone is enough to convey her disapproval. "Well, from the looks of it you'll be fine, but I still want to take a few samples." She has a hypo in her hand before Aeryn can blink, and only Aeryn's quick reflexes prevent Hadieri from drawing blood samples.

Aeryn stands suddenly, brushing past Hadieri to the door. "I'm fine. I'll make sure to rehydrate. Comm me if he wakes." With a momentary glance at John, Aeryn departs.

But that's something new, anyway. Yesterday she would not have spared the glance.

*

In the middle of the sleep cycle, Aeryn wakes abruptly, a fine sheen of sweat on her body. She turns to a bin by the side of her bed and empties her stomach with a series of wrenching coughs.

They can't talk here. They can't talk anywhere in the compound. Sardak doesn't trust him, she doesn't think. Aeryn dresses quietly, quickly, and slips from her room.

John's sleep is much easier now than when she left him in the hospital. She feels a stab of something - deep affection, love, camaraderie, she's not sure - looking down on him, and she reaches out tentatively to stroke his hairline.

Aeryn carefully searches the shelves until she finds the sun balm Hadieri keeps in the medical bay. The scent is pungent, but not unpleasant, and she goes about working it into John's still-healing skin.

It isn't long before he wakes, swimming up out of heavy drugged sleep and blinking at her with bleary eyes.

"I'm not dreaming, am I?" he whispers hoarsely.

"No," she responds in kind. "You're not." Matter-of-factness is a refuge, and she seals the balm tightly and helps him sit up with capable hands. "You mentioned when we came in that you were hungry," she says, her voice under control again, and sets a tray of plain rations on his lap.

He drinks the water with unquenchable urgency, and she has a refill ready before he can ask for it. She watches him eat silently, picking at some of the food herself.

When he's finished eating, he opens his mouth deliberately, and she shakes her head once. She keeps her voice low. "We should go for a walk. Outside."

"Well," he smiles ruefully, "I was told to stay out of the sun."

"You'll be all right," she responds. "It's early morning." Fortunately, he's steady on his feet, and they slip out the front door casually, nodding to the night crew.

Their shoulders brush repeatedly as they make their way to the surface, and as soon as they're outside, squinting in the early morning sun, John stops her with a hand on her upper arm.

"You know there are promises I can't make," he says steadily, though he feels anything but.

Aeryn nods, her eyes wary. "Likewise."

And then he remembers - remembers why he had to come after her in the first place, the very first place. Scans the barren length of her body, and the sense of loss and confusion is like a punch in the gut.

Maybe, he thinks, he really is crazy after all.

They set off across the city, if it could be called that. A cluster of old stone buildings, with a few underground entrances dotting the landscape between. The real city is underground, kept secret from prying eyes in the air. At the edge of the outpost, the grit gives way to brown fields, and John stops her again. "Where are we going?"

She nods toward the horizon, squinting into the distance. "I don't want to be overheard. There's some kind of memorial over there, something they dug up from a thousand cycles ago."

They stand in a field of straw-colored vegetation which brushes against their boots as they start down the path. The tension grows thick as John tries to think his way out of this mess; anger, confusion, relief, sadness, helplessness all warring for provenance.

Aeryn glances at him sideways, wondering what's going on in his mind, that it's playing out so violently on his face.

*

They reach their destination, a collection of monoliths sunken below the level of the ground. The rough-hewn walls of the excavation site tower overhead. Aeryn begins to explain why the ex-Peacekeepers chose to make their base here; that a flagship would be too easy to trace, that no Peacekeeper in their right mind would think to look on this planet.

Her voice has a strange hushed quality, the sounds absorbed by the ground rising around them. She's stalling for time. He knows it, and she knows he knows it.

John looks at the bleached-tan sky; Aeryn scuffs her boot through the dust and looks at the ground. They can't pull away from each other, any more than the sky can leave the land. And maybe he's eclipsed her sun, but she's buried his city. He's Pompeii to her Vesuvius, and oh, and oh, it burns.

Vast tracts of silence, territories of the unspoken. Entire continents of things left unsaid. And who are they, to go digging up old pain? Memory is one part archaeology, one part architecture, two parts ache. They collide in this place, here among the ruins. She's the sky, and he's the ground, two sides of the same horizon.

John interrupts Aeryn by taking her hand. It startles her, but she doesn't pull back. With the scent and weight of years surrounding them, it's harder to look at one another, and when he does, he's the one to drop her hand. "Moya's in trouble," he says quickly.

It's the last thing she anticipated, and an irrational part of her mind wonders why he didn't say anything before. Why he didn't say anything immediately. "How? Why, from whom?"

He shrugs. "I've been trying to find that out for the last six months. My best guess is the Pathfinders, since they have both the technology and the motive. But it could be anyone, Aeryn, for all I know. I was in my module, and suddenly, this wormhole appeared out of nowhere, and sucked Moya in. And then it disappeared."

"And you've been...looking for information on Moya the last half-cycle."

"Not exactly." Not exactly, my ass, he thinks. Moya's been on his mind one tenth of the time that Aeryn has. Still. "If they're even still alive, I have no idea where to start looking for them. And I can't pull off a rescue on my own. I - I needed you for that. I need you. For that."

And there's nothing she can say to that. Not now. Certainly not now.

John doesn't look at her. There's too much to say, and too much to deny. But finally, he can't stand it anymore, and the words are out before he can stop himself. "Why. Why didn't you tell me." And his voice is dull because it's been half a cycle and she doesn't look pregnant at all.

She makes a frustrated sound, rolling her eyes. "Why didn't I tell you what?" she snaps.

He'd thought that things were on an upswing, as he searched for her. But everything went dark again, when he found her and couldn't look at her familiar profile. "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

And she goes absolutely still, absolutely white. "How did you know?" she breathes. Her mind starts turning in circles. No one else knows. Not yet. She tries not to think of it herself. Of all the things she expected to be wrong, she didn't think this would be it. Not until she told him, at the very least.

"The, uh, the old woman told me. I - remembered it. Just before Moya disappeared." He doesn't ask what happened to it, doesn't think he wants to know.

Aeryn's universe has been upended before, but never in this way, this crazy, canting, nauseous roll. "Crichton."

"John." His throat closes on bile.

"John. Look at me." He raises his head reluctantly, and she speaks slowly. "I wasn't pregnant when I left Moya."

"Oh." That's all he can say, "Oh." But his voice, when he says it, is like cracking metal. All this time, he was so worried, that she didn't trust him. Wouldn't trust him with - and now - and he...

There's another heavy silence, and she sighs, asks offhandedly, "You're not angry?" Not anything?

He shakes his head. "Um, I feel..." Relieved? "I'm not sure..." Betrayed? No. Not betrayed. Stupid, maybe. "Look, Aeryn, all things considered, I can't really throw stones. And it's not like--"

"No. It's not like." She doesn't quite understand what he means, but she thinks he's just confessed something.

And he's not crazy after all. Stupid, yes. Crazy, no. What was it the old bat said? Something about forgiveness? 'Her world, her time, you will know...'

Of all the stupid things he's believed, this might not take the top spot. But he feels worse about this one. He refuses to think who it was that touched her. Well, refuses to ask, because he knows. Deep breath. It's...okay. Maybe. "So. That's one...obstacle out of the way." Except in all the ways it isn't. "As for Moya--" And it's not that simple. "Who was it? And how long?"

His voice is sharp, but less so that she expected. Aeryn shakes her head. "It's irrelevant. It was...not a mistake, exactly. A rash decision. And I found out three weekens ago."

"It was that Sardak guy, wasn't it?" While John finds it easier to continue to stare at the ground, Aeryn having someone else's child seems, after all this, less complicated than Aeryn having his twin's.

"Yes," she answers steadily, still watching him. Still waiting for him to be angry. But something else. "And you thought..."

"I thought it was...him, and you hadn't told me." He's quiet, as Aeryn ingests the information. His voice is small when he asks, "Would you have told me?"

"I don't know." Her eyes are faraway, and it hurts to remember. Not like it used to. But still, it hurts. There's something to be said for that, that time dulls the pain, and she can't say for certain that it's something good. She'd been stupid and careless with Sardak. It wasn't like that before. It wasn't like that. "I would have, once. I can think of a time that I would have. But then, it would have been you, and not..."

All that time he spent convincing her he was different, and then he went and forgot it himself.

Aeryn remembers to breathe in, and says, "What do we do now?" All she knows is, it hurt too much to leave once. Twice, really. She can't do it again.

John runs a hand through his hair harshly, and he grunts at the pain of his forgotten sunburn. "I - really needed you for this. For Moya. But, now I don't know... You know, not once did I think about how we were going to save Moya with a kid in tow. Not once. Maybe it was all just a... But I do, Aeryn. Have to find a way to save Moya. It was an excuse at first. I'll admit that. But what happened to Moya is my fault. When I'm done, though--"

"John, I'm coming with you," she interrupts him. She knows what he's trying to say. And it would be a lie if she said she wasn't grateful. Grateful, that he came after her. 'It's too late for me,' she'd told him. Aeryn wonders when she became prone to dramatic statements such as that. She should know - it's never too late. "I can't - Pilot and Moya - John, I can't stay here and have a child."

"But what--"

"I can't stay here. At all. It's...not what I thought it would be." It's not exactly a lie. It's better than she thought it would be. But it's just a life, after all. Not one she can't walk away from without regret. She didn't lie; Sardak was merely a rash decision.

"But the kid--"

"We'll deal with that. When it becomes a problem. I...haven't decided anything yet. I haven't had time to. In the meantime..."

"In the meantime, are you gonna tell him?"

Aeryn closes her eyes for a moment. "No."

John thinks, maybe, that he should feel more guilty about that than he does. Just maybe. "So, we're just gonna..."

"Yes." She opens her eyes and regards him steadily. "We should leave today."

He doesn't touch her. But there's a light of hope in his eyes, and she hopes he isn't asking too much. She hopes she isn't offering too much.

The sky rolls and rumbles, the wind begins to sting their skin. They look up in surprise as fat raindrops fall into their faces. She says, "They told me the humid season would begin soon."

He is unsure how to respond. He wants to say, "The sky is falling," but he remains silent instead. Their clothes cling to them now, and come midday the ground will boil. Where the sky meets the ground, the lines blur, and he knows just how bad it can be for both of them. He doesn't care.

He's salt of the earth, and she's a whisper of sharp, cool air. He promises that they were made to fit together, to fill in the missing pieces in each others' fractured horizons. He says it's the only promise they can make.

She doesn't believe in promises anymore.

She's not sure she ever did.

\--

end


End file.
